September 2003

Welcome to the September issue of Connections, the American Society for Engineering Education's free e-newsletter.

Spotlight On Our Sponsors:

For more than 26 years, National Instruments has revolutionized the way engineers and scientists work by delivering virtual instrumentation solutions built on rapidly advancing commercial technologies, including industry-standard computers and the Internet. Our Academic Program offers curriculum resources, substantial discounts, product training, and special academic products that are ideal for integrating LabVIEW and virtual instrumentation in any research program or teaching curriculum. Visit www.ni.com/academic for more information on our Academic Program and special software and hardware discounts for Academia.

Autodesk's AutoCAD 2004 - Now Available at Education Pricing!

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Synplicity Offers State-of-the-Art Software to Universities

Through Synplicity's University Program, accredited universities worldwide can obtain easy-to-use commercial development software for teaching and academic research purposes allowing tomorrow's designers the ability to gain valuable experience with the latest methods and technologies. Synplicity, Inc. is committed to training future engineers by providing universities with state-of-the-art EDA solutions. Synplify ASIC has recently joined Synplify Pro, Amplify FPGA Physical Optimizer, Identify and Certify software as a part of Synplicity's University Product Portfolio.

Currently, Synplicity is offering software promotions through the University Program for worldwide universities - "Buy Amplify, Certify, Identify Synplify ASIC and receive Synplify Pro for Free." For further details on this and other offers, please contact university@synplicity.com or visit synplicity.com/training/university/
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ME*Pro® and EE*Pro® Engineering Apps are now FREE from Texas Instruments!

Two popular Handheld Software Applications (Apps) for engineering are now available free on the TI website. ME*Pro, with its equation set, is perfect for mechanical engineers and students. EE*Pro is a great tool for electrical engineers, with sections for analysis, equations and reference. Both Apps can be loaded onto the TI-89 and the Voyage™ 200, as well as the TI-92 Plus. Get yours today at http://education.ti.com/89apps.

Federal Biological/Environmental R&D Opportunities FY 2004

Essential to researchers in the biological, environmental, and agricultural communities, Federal Biological/Environmental R&D Opportunities FY 2004 will provide a comprehensive briefing on the government's research priorities, programs, goals, and funding to academic, industry, and government representatives.

This is The Event for researchers wishing to learn more about the research opportunities in 2004 with key government agencies. Featured speakers will include representatives from the NSF, EPA, USDA, NIH, NASA, DOE, and the Bureau of Reclamation, among others.

Join us in Washington, DC, November 19-21. For more information or to register, visit Infocast at www.infocastinc.com or call (818) 888-4444.

Connections is brought to you by the American Society for Engineering Education.

Over 12,000 engineering and engineering technology faculty members and administrators enjoy the many benefits and services that ASEE offers. The Society's award-winning magazine ASEE Prism and academic publications (Journal of Engineering Education and Profiles of Engineering Colleges) keep members up to date with the best and latest in engineering education, engineering research trends, and academic issues, while 47 professional interest groups and a varied selection of meetings provide professional development and networking opportunities that no other society can offer within the engineering education community. Members also receive reduced rates at local and national conferences, discounts on ASEE products, money-saving members-only discounts on financial, insurance, and travel programs, plus an ever growing variety of online services. Our goal is to focus on issues that matter the most to you in our publications, meetings, and on-line services, and to enable you to interact with others who share your specific engineering and educational interests. To join online, just go to www.asee.org/members, or contact our member services department at 202-331-3520 for further information.

Engineering schools now have the opportunity to post job openings in the CONNECTIONS e-newsletter sent to 20,000 engineering and engineering technology faculty monthly. If your school would like to advertise a job opening in CONNECTIONS contact Paula Whitley at (202) 331-3528 or p.whitley@asee.org.

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In this Issue:

I. Science and Technology Briefs

Digital Detective - Today's sleuths use technology to sift through thousands of clues.
Worth a Thousand Words - Prototype software allows the visually impaired to draw, and break down barriers to the sighted world.
Looking for Light in San Francisco - One of the nation's foggiest cities is working to ease its energy woes with solar power.

II. Congressional Hotline

Blackout Energizes Stalled Energy Bill
Modest Budget Increase for NSF

III. Teaching Toolbox

Remembrance of Projects Past - A Bowling Green professor outlines a program to include engineering's heritage in today's curricula.
Learning about Learning - Professors at Rowan University are applying new theories about how people learn to help their students.

IV. Feature Articles

America's Newest Export - U.S. engineering schools are gradually venturing into the global marketplace - setting up shop in countries such as France, Greece, Singapore, and even China.
Scaling the Ranks - Former Pentagon official Delores Etter may well be the most sought after engineer in the power corridor of the nation's capital.

I. Science and Technology Briefs

DIGITAL DETECTIVE
Top fictional investigators like Sherlock Holmes and Columbo can be counted on to figure things out no matter the complexities of a case. But real-life accident and crime investigators might welcome a bit of high-tech help, especially when there are literally tons of information to sift through. Researchers at the NASA Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif., are developing the Information-Organizer, a web-based tool that can store, manage, disseminate, and help analyze information collected in an investigation. Yuri Gawdiak, manager of the Engineering for Complex Systems Program, which is developing the software, says it places information into logical categories. "It's a good way to organize information as you add more and more, and guides you toward the information you should have." This is particularly useful when an investigation has numerous teams working in tandem. But up until now, he says, the only information technology tool investigators have used is e-mail. That makes it difficult for teams to share information, especially since they're not always using standard methods for storing and managing data.

Suppose investigators of an air crash find an engine part; the software helps them organize such important information as when and where it was found, other objects found nearby, what lab tests were run on it, and the results of those tests. The software not only helps investigators link data, but also prioritize their probes and spot inconsistencies of fact. Eventually, it will use intelligent agents to help test hypotheses. While the Information-Organizer was initially been set up to investigate mishaps, it could easily be used in criminal investigations by adding such parameters as motives and alibis.

Eventually, NASA wants to work with private-sector partners to commercialize the software, Gawdiak says. Perhaps if Sir Arthur Conan Doyle were alive today, his fictional hero Sherlock Holmes would be tapping on a laptop, not puffing on a pipe.

WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS
James Landay, an assistant professor of computer sciences at the University of California-Berkeley, recalls the time he asked his graduate students to make a presentation using power point slides. All the students, save one, combined text and graphics in their slides. But the slides made by Hesham Kamel, who was blinded by a surgical accident 17 years ago, contained only text. The person who usually helped Kamel make graphics wasn't available, and people who are visually impaired find conventional drawing and animation software almost impossible to use on their own. Landay, Kamel's thesis advisor, said a solution to that dilemma would make a good thesis topic.

Kamel has since developed a prototype software-Integrated Communications 2 Draw (IC2D)-that enables the visually impaired to create and color computer images when used in conjunction with screen readers and voice synthesizers. By using the grid to select various points, the user can connect them with lines and arcs. Each grid can then twice be divided into nine more grids to allow for more elaborate tools and colors. Segments of a drawing can also be labeled. For instance, by placing the cursor on the rear tire of a car drawing, the computer will tell the user it's a rear tire. The labeling not only allows the artist to later "see" what he or she has drawn, but allows other blind users to visualize the picture, too.

Landay says even those people blind from birth have a pretty good sense of what common, everyday objects look like. For instance, by handling toy cars, they can develop a mental image of a car. And this software will allow them to share that image with others. Giving the visually impaired the ability to make computer graphics and animate them will further increase their ability to communicate with one another and the sighted world, Landay says. And that's a big step forward. As Landay notes, "We often communicate with pictures."

LOOKING FOR LIGHT IN SAN FRANCISCO
Fog is to San Francisco what snow is to Buffalo-a given. So the city doesn't necessarily spring to mind as a leader in solar power. But within five years, the Bay City wants to add 10 megawatts of solar power to its electricity grid-enough to power, on average, 10,000 homes. Eventually, it wants solar power to generate 5 percent of its peak power needs, about 40 megawatts. The city issued $100 million in revenue bonds to pay for installation of renewable energy sources-part of the fallout from 2001's energy crisis that hit residents with brownouts, rolling blackouts, and skyrocketing energy bills. So to determine where best to position solar panels around Fog Town, local officials com-missioned the engineering firm Augustyn + Company of Berkeley to erect 11 monitors around the city that register and measure solar energy. The idea is to create a fog map. Correction, says Jim Augustyn, "it's a solar map."

The monitors should make the capturing of solar energy more efficient. Mere observation gave engineers a pretty good notion where the sunniest spots are, mainly around Bay Side, an area sheltered from serious fog. "The question is," according to Augustyn, "how much better are the good spots?" He thinks San Francisco's solar-power goals are reachable. "There's quite a bit of potential in the city." The main surprise so far, he adds, is that the foggiest parts of town still capture a fair amount of solar power, far more than he would have reckoned. "The difference between the best and worse areas is not as bad as I though it would be," he admits. That's got to be encouraging news for the city's energy-beleaguered and fogbound denizens.

Back to the index.

II. Congressional Hotline

BLACKOUT ENERGIZES STALLED ENERGY BILL
The August 14 blackout that turned out the lights on approximately 50,000,000 is providing a boost to efforts in Congress to pass a comprehensive energy policy bill that has been languishing since the beginning of the Bush Administration. While the House and Senate passed radically different versions of the bill this summer, work on reconciling the two will fall to Republicans who are promising results soon. Senator Pete Domenici (NM) and Representative Billy Tauzin (LA), chairs of the panels charged with producing the bills, plan to work together writing a bill containing common elements and GOP priorities and avoid, in Domenici's words, "weeks of squabbling" over details.

The bill has fallen victim to controversy over drilling for oil in the Alaska National Wildlife Reserve (ANWR). Republicans have lobbied hard to open up ANWR to exploratory drilling by oil companies, while Democrats have resisted, citing concerns about environmental damage and ongoing dependence on oil as an energy source. So far, enough moderate Republicans have sided with Democrats to prevent the approval of drilling in ANWR.

After the blackout, though, circumstances have changed. In a letter from Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham, the Bush Administration has renewed its support for an energy bill and drilling in ANWR. In addition, the letter pushes for enhancing the reliability of transmission lines and transferring decision-making control over "high-priority" transmission lines from states to the federal government. Passage of a bill of one kind or another seems likely, regardless of Democratic opposition.

MODEST BUDGET INCREASE FOR NSF
With the Senate Appropriations Committee having finished work on National Science Foundation funding for next year, the agency's budget prospects have begun to clarify. The committee arrived at $5.59 billion for NSF, a 5.2% increase over last year. By contrast, the House settled on $5.64 billion, or a 6.2% increase. These numbers conform to a pattern in recent years of exceeding what the president requests for the agency, but falling short of what NSF advocates have sought. Despite having the authority to raise the budget up to $6.39 billion-a sum that would put NSF on a path to double by 2008-the committee signed off on what members themselves considered disappointingly small increases. However, amid constrained spending conditions and facing competition from veterans' and housing interests, an increase in the 5-6% range can be considered further confirmation of NSF's high standing in the eyes of both House and Senate legislators.

Back to the index.

III. Teaching Toolbox

REMEMBRANCE OF PROJECTS PAST
Engineering structures, sites, and objects are, literally and figuratively, the foundation of much of America's history and culture. Salim Elwazani, associate professor and coordinator in Bowling Green State University's architecture and environmental design studies program, writes that these engineering works are more than just technological achievements; they embody the cultural and social norms of the society for which they were built. He provides as examples, two structures listed in the Historic American Engineering Record (HAER) of the National Park Service: The Potomac Power Plant and Natchez Trace Parkway. The power plant, built in 1830s Harpers Ferry, West Virginia, witnessed nearly a hundred years of history, including John Brown's Raid in 1859. The Natchez Trace Parkway follows an old trail used by Native Americans, traders, and pioneers. Stretching from Mississippi to Tennessee, the roadway built on it today provides access to numerous historic sites.

Elwazani praises the work of HAER in preserving sites such as these and similar efforts undertaken by professional engineering societies and decries the lack of a similar effort by engineering schools. Positing that engineering heritage is an important link to the wider community, Elwazani writes that engineering schools, many of which incorporate into their mission statements phrases such as "to support the social good of society," shouldn't ignore it. His argument gains added weight when one considers American students' failure to see the social relevance of engineering and the consequent shrinking of engineering-school enrollments.

Elwazani outlines the following three-step scheme to incorporate engineering heritage in engineering curricula: A required course on the history of engineering and technology; the completion of an upper-level elective or two on preservation principles and methods; and a graduate concentration or separate program on preservation. These steps, if followed, he writes will instill an appreciation of engineering heritage in engineering students, create new career opportunities, and bolster the preservation efforts of professional engineering societies.

LEARNING ABOUT LEARNING
Group projects have become an essential part of engineering workplace. But too many engineering students are graduating with poor interpersonal skills. A team of chemical engineering professors at Rowan University in New Jersey writes that part of the problem is that not enough emphasis is put on the dynamics of group learning as separate from the project work. This involves an understanding of how individual group members learn.

The Rowan professors looked at many studies and found that an effective learner must have two attributes: "awareness and knowledge of self as a learner" and "conscious self-control and self-regulation of cognition." Basically, to be more aware of how they learn. To aid their students in acquiring these attributes, the chemical engineering professors employed the Learning Combination Inventory (LCI) model of human learning. The model assumes the existence of four basic learning patterns and that an individual uses them all to a certain degree while mastering new material but tends to favor one. In group work, a mix of the four styles among members maximizes effectiveness.

All chemical engineering students at Rowan have taken the LCI and the faculty used the results to build more effective groups. A major problem they encountered was that most of their students tended to strongly favor one learning style. Also some faculty members were unsure how to utilize the LCI reports. In response, the chemical engineering professors developed a new implementation system for the Spring 2003 semester that will provide more uniform guidance in using the reports.

To read full-text academic articles about these and other exciting innovations in the engineering classroom, go to http://www.asee.org/conferences/proceedings/search.cfm.

Back to the index.

IV. Feature Articles

AMERICA'S NEWEST EXPORT
By Alvin P. Sanoff

The globalization of business is taken for granted in 21st-century America. U.S. firms have built plants and established offices throughout the world, and foreign enterprises have set up major facilities in this country. Autos, software, cellphones, soft drinks-the list of industries that have become global goes on and on.

But while business has become internationalized, the same cannot be said of education. Although foreign students flock to study in this country, American universities, for the most part, have been hesitant to move in the opposite direction and offer education outside the nation's borders. The obstacles-cultural, financial, logistical-have seemed daunting. Moreover, innovation does not come easily to institutions of higher education, which are reluctant to depart from traditional ways of doing business.

Attitudes, however, have gradually been shifting as schools conclude that there are opportunities abroad and that the obstacles are not insurmountable.

Go to http://www.prism-magazine.org/mar03/export.cfm to read the rest of this story.

SCALING THE RANKS
By Susan Lapinski

On her way to a meeting in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Delores Etter was headed down a long hallway in the Pentagon. "As I walked along, I was pinching myself," she recalls with characteristic modesty. "How can I be getting this chance to help with problems of national security and work on such incredible things?"

With the special combination of political savvy and technological know-how, Etter has become indispensable at this time of heightened security for the nation. Often called a national resource by those in the engineering arena, the self-described "little girl from Oklahoma" is an internationally recognized authority on digital signal processing who can explain complicated weapon systems to senators on the Armed Forces Committee. She also understands how policy is made, knows the budget process through and through, and is accessible enough to steer university administrators and researchers through the bureaucratic maze.

Go to http://www.prism-magazine.org/mar03/ranks.cfm to read the rest of this story.

Back to the index.

**Conference**

Information Visit to Germany
The German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) invites up to 20 U.S. deans of engineering, technology and applied sciences to participate in a visiting program to Germany in December 2003. With this informational visit to several German technical universities, the DAAD will foster a more international outlook for engineering in the U.S. and in Germany, and strengthen the ties between schools of engineering in both countries. The participants will have the opportunity to exchange perspectives and explore opportunities for cooperation with leaders from German industry and professional bodies in the field. For further information please check the following website: http://www.daad.org/2/announcements.htm#dean.

New! ASEE K-12 Engineering Guidebook
ASEE's new "Engineering, Go For It" K-12 guidebook is dedicated to attracting high school students to engineering. The 64-page color publication is filled with stories about the fascinating work of engineers, information on life on campus, and a directory of over 400 engineering and engineering technology schools. "Engineering, Go For It!" features a eye-popping design and relevant stories-on for example, the role of electrical engineers in the music of Britney Spears and Fatboy Slim. Over 200,000 copies of "Engineering, Go For It!" have been sent to engineering colleges around the country. To learn more about "Engineering, Go For It!" or to order copies for your school, visit: https://www.engineering-goforit.com/index.cfm?CFID=628224&CFTOKEN=31c5cccb13491301-687CCF24-65B8-C495-CCB7FA3C44D223E4.

Editor-In-Chief
Jo Ann Tooley

Senior Editors
Robert Gardner

Eric Iversen

Production Manager
Jennifer Johnson

Advertising Manager
Mike Sanoff
m.sanoff@asee.org